injury, work (-)
So. I bend rules for a living - sometime I break them. That's a not-inaccurate way to say I use a CNC machine to process various heights and thickness of razor-sharp metal rule, several hundred feet per day. These come in coils - which I've referred to in the past as mainsprings, for obvious reasons. There's a fair amount of potential kinetic energy stored in a 1"X150' coil of 4pt spring steel wound into a 20" diameter.
That's not directly how I cut myself.
injury, work (-)
@Momentrabbit The coil comes wound clockwise, or counterclockwise. It feeds into the machine we use to bend it from the left: if the coil is wound *counterclockwise*, the slight curve the coil imparts to the metal during storage presses the lead edge against the *back* of the punch-block, which is smooth. This goes through with far fewer jams and spoiled pieces.
Had to use a new, tightly would coil yesterday: it was wound *clockwise*, and constantly jamming.
injury, work (-)
@Momentrabbit So I rewound it. Locked one cartridge of clockwise-wound rule into position, fed the rule into an empty cartride, and rewound onto the empty cartridge counter-clockwise, then manually fed the rule onto the new spindle.
I've done this without injury hundreds of times. I was wearing cut-resistant gloves, aramid fibre and latex. And I still managed to open a gash in the heel of my hand that needed three stitches to close.
injury, work (-)
@Momentrabbit We shall see, having often asked for the rule to be wound *at the factory by machine* correctly, if the head office now gets that this rewind really isn't an optional request.
I am going to make a jig to do this: something with clamps and safeties that keeps hands away from metal and so forth, with handles and frictiin fittings and anti-kickback devices.
Just in case they figure a few stitches per year is a sustainable cost.
